LMI Funding, Inc. - Net Branch Operations

Update - 2008-03-28: LMI's founder and president, Jay Atterstrom, responded to us in a very candid email about the company's decision to go with PRMI. "As recently as a year ago, we employed over 200 full and part time employees in 11 physical locations and produced between $20 and $33 million in monthly volume." He gave us a clearer picture of their integration with PRMI:

"It hasn't been an easy transition - but a migration like this rarely is. It's been costly. We had been preparing our group for changes for over a year. We tightened up our expectations. We built a virtual business platform (paperless, web-based, IP phone system, secure conduits for transmission of private data, etc.). We began auditing a higher percentage of our loans to determine where weakness existed. We systematically implemented changes to assure compliance, reduce potential incidents of fraud, and reduced exposure to other risk. It was exhausting. The changes were not popular with some of our group - especially those that could not handle the higher degree of accountability.

Those who understood the need for the changes and invested in their professional education were invited to join us in our migration to PRMI - those who were defiant to our expectations (which in our opinion mirrored those of the industry) were left behind to find employment elsewhere. When we completed the culling process, we were down to what we considered to be 80 qualified employees and we invited 65 of those to migrate with us."

Original Post - 2008-03-27: We received word that employees of Plano, TX based net operation LMI Funding, Inc were hearing the company "is closing down and having their branches go to Primary Residential" back in early February. They apparently heard right - the company web site is now Primary Residential Mortgage. An alternative web site simply states "Making some changes will be back soon..."

LMI has surrendered their licensing in Texas (as listed in the state's SML database), and VP of Operations Phyllis Rachall said about 50 people in 2 offices (including the Plano, TX corporate headquarters) migrated to PRMI as "Divisional Joint Venture" branches. A memo detailing the switch and LMI's closure is being mailed to vendors and investors this month. CityTownInfo showed 11 offices in TX and OK. They were doing business in 11 states.

LMI Funding, Inc. was a DBA of The Atterstrom Consulting Group, Inc. Primary Residential Mortgage Inc. (PRMI) is a Utah-based net branch operation with over "800 people working in over 150 Branches" according to Reuters.

One tipster wrote:

"I got the tip from an employee and called the VP today to confirm, she had no problem saying it ..."

When we called in February, Ms. Rachall simply responded "that decision has not been made yet." PRMI's President Dave Zitting acknowledged he knew LMI President Jay Atterstrom, and told us if they (PRMI) were in the process of "absorbing" other net branches on a large scale, that he would be aware of it. He mentioned PRMI had picked up a handful of Maverick offices, and said they were actively recruiting several other "significant" net ops.

There is a discussion thread for this company on our forum. More information is always welcome - click here to email us about LMI Funding.